Korean/templates

Vowels

	ㆎ*	ㅚ	ㅐ	ㆉ*	ㅒ	ㅙ
天	ㆍ*	ㅗ	ㅏ	ㅛ	ㅑ	ㅘ	陽
人	ㅣ						中
地	ㅡ	ㅜ	ㅓ	ㅠ	ㅕ	ㅝ	陰
	ㅢ	ㅟ	ㅔ	ㆌ*	ㅖ	ㅞ
	* Obsolete

This template may help explain the five evolutionary stages of native vowels as follows:

1.   1 element (3 simple vowels, cosmic and atomic)
2.   2 elements (4 simple vowels, with the sun up and down, back and forth)
3.   3 elements (4 iotized vowels, 2nd-stage analogy)
4.   4 elements (2 harmonic vowels, 2nd-stage harmony)
5.   1~4 elements plus "ㅣ" (12 diphthongs extending from all kinds but "ㅣ")

By the way, you may be sensitive enough to observe the 2nd and 4th bodily columns look lighter than the 3rd and 5th columns, respectively, though the 2nd-3rd and 4th-5th columns respectively share the same objective or physical shades, #555555 and #777777. Such observed differences in shade are subjective or physiological instead of objective or physical. Why? In general, our physiology may favor an object in sharper than physical contrast with the surroundings. And this may hold in hearing and even the other senses. We hear the whisper louder in silence. On the other hand, we hear the talk of our partner clearer in the noisy pub or cocktail party, and the mother penguin hears her baby's quack clearer in the extremely noisy crowds. Colin Cherry (1953) dubbed this physiological bias the cocktail party effect. We live by signs and senses as well as science!